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Season of Miracles

Excerpt

“So after all those years of faking illness, Mrs. Ramsey just up and died last month. Just like that. Nobody even knew she was really sick. She complained so much all the time Dr. Mooney didn’t do more than give her a quick check. Next thing anybody knew, she keeled over in his parking lot. Gone in a minute.”

Sloane Tyson sat in his aunt’s living room and twisted the brim of his panama hat. The malleable straw crackled and popped as he ruined the shape forever. “So what happened to Elise after her mother died?” he asked, his voice a shade more enthusiastic than mere politeness dictated.

“Oh, she’s still here. She’ll be teaching again this year, I suspect. Best teacher at Miracle Springs High. Prettiest, too.” Lillian Tyson looked at her nephew with interest. “Weren’t you sweet on her years ago?”

Sloane had forgotten how every detail of life in a small town was collected and stored in the minds of its inhabitants. The system was more efficient than a computer bank and only slightly more personal. Today he had sat quietly and listened to his aunt’s recital of the intimate details of the lives of Miracle Springs citizens, not expecting himself to be drawn into the conversation. He should have known better. He should have realized that Elise Ramsey would be on Lillian Tyson’s list.

“You remember farther back than I do,” he said nonchalantly. But of course, that wasn’t true.

He’d forgotten a lot about Miracle Springs, put it out of his mind as if he’d never lived there, but he’d never forgotten Elise.

No, he’d never forgotten Elise.

Lillian would not be daunted. “Well, it seems to me that you went steady with her your senior year.”

“That was seventeen years ago.”

“Around here, nothing much happens in seventeen years.”

Sloane smiled wryly. His aunt was right, and it was precisely the reason he had left the small town of three thousand where he’d been born. He’d left at the first opportunity and never come back—except once, for his mother’s funeral.

Lillian Tyson seemed to read his mind. “Are you going to make it, Sloane? Can you stand living here a year?”

“My choices are limited.” Sloane stood and began to pace the small living room that was crowded with old furniture and assorted knickknacks. He was a large man, and he dwarfed his surroundings as well as the old woman who fondly watched his pacing.

“You’re like a tiger in a cage,” she pronounced, proud of her analogy. “Always have been. Miracle Springs hems you in.”

And it was precisely that “hemming in” that had brought him back. For the first time he was in need of the sheltering influences of the little town, its slow, easy pace, its acceptance of its own. The last thought made him pause. “Do you think they’re going to accept Clay?” he asked.

As Lillian watched her nephew her unfailingly cheerful expression didn’t change. She didn’t have to ask who “they” were. She knew Sloane referred to the citizens of Miracle Springs. “He’s your son, isn’t he? He’s a Tyson. He may have some trouble, but he’ll make it here.”

“He wouldn’t have made it in Cambridge,” Sloane said to himself as much as to his aunt. “The kids there would have eaten him alive.”

“They may try that here, but he’ll be protected.”

“I guess that’s a start.”

The living-room door swung open and a slender young man entered the room, his hands jammed in the pockets of stiff new blue jeans. “I fed your cats, Lillian,” he said.

“I suspect everything seems strange,” Lillian said, a smile directed at her great-nephew. “But you don’t seem strange to us. You’re the spitting image of your daddy there. Right down to the way your hair swirls off your forehead.”

Clay nodded, glancing at his father to see what impact his aunt’s comment had made on Sloane. With an insight far beyond his years, Clay probably suspected that their resemblance was not a source of pleasure to his father.

“Resembles you right down to the ponytail,” Lillian said, this time to Sloane.

“Sloane had a ponytail?” Clay asked.

“Nothing like yours,” Lillian said, reaching out to tug the brown hair that fell in restrained waves to the middle of Clay’s back. “When your dad was growing up around here, nobody’d even seen long hair on a man. Your dad’s was short, barely long enough to put in a rubber band, but I’ll tell you, it caused a stir in this town you wouldn’t believe.”

“What happened, Sloane?” Clay turned to his father and monitored his expression again.

“My uncle hauled me off to the barber shop. He was bigger than I was.” The ghost of a grin lit Sloane’s face.

Clay seemed encouraged. “Are you planning to repeat history?”

“I’m not going to force you to do anything, Clay. It’s your hair. I have no opinions about it one way or the other.”

“Well I do,” Lillian said firmly. “You want to fit in at Miracle Springs High, you get that hair cut before you go the first day. Kids’ll like you better if you look like them.”

Clay looked as if he was considering her words. “Why would they want me to look like them?” he asked finally. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Lillian’s jaw dropped a little, and Sloane shook his head. “You’ve got a lot to learn about teenagers, Clay,” he said.

Clay shrugged. “I haven’t even seen any teenagers here.”

“Hasn’t he been to the springs?” Lillian asked Sloane.

“I’ve been too busy settling in to take him.”

“He can go by himself. He’s fifteen. This isn’t Boston. Fifteen’s old enough to go anywhere around here. Do you have a swimsuit?” she asked Clay. At his nod she added, “Do you want to go?”

Clay nodded again.

“Then go home and put it on. You can swim while your dad takes care of business this afternoon. I’ll walk you down to show you the way.”